A 'tropical disease' carried by sand flies is confirmed in a new country: the U.S.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/11/01/ [login to see] /leishmaniasis-sand-flies-tropical-disease-endemic-north-america-united-states
Back in 2014, dermatologist Bridget McIlwee saw a 3-year-old patient in central Texas with unusual bumps on his ear.

"They looked a little bit like almost kind of a benign mole that you would see in a child, except that you wouldn't expect something like that to come up quickly and then multiply," she says.

McIlwee sent off a sample for laboratory testing, and the results came back pointing to a surprising culprit: The boy had tested positive for cutaneous leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease. The World Health Organization says between 600,000 and 1 million new infections happen worldwide every year, mostly in tropical regions of the Americas, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and Central Asia - not in Texas. These illnesses can be disfiguring, even if they are rarely fatal.